what kind of tattoos you got? got any tattoos? >> every day across america, and around the world, human traffickers who call themselves pimps are selling women like commodities and branding them like cattle. >> the pimps will brand the girls, put their tattoos on their neck or have their names somewhere on their body. >> it is a particular depravity to tattoo somebody, to mark them as your property. and that is what is going on. >> beaten and living in fear, more and more young american women are now being scarred for life. >> i didn't have a choice. i was scared to death. i said, this is the day we're

going to die. >> with new harsher laws and wiretaps, the federal government is waging war on the violent criminals that exploit women. >> can't you just leave me alone? >> you better bring a -- thank you, my [ bleep ]. >> tonight, msnbc is on the front lines with foot soldiers in the trafficking battle, as they rescue victims -- >> walking up. >> -- and go undercover to arrest the men that drive the demand for cheap sex. >> this is a big misunderstanding. big misunderstanding. at 5:00 a.m., an hour when most in the windy city still slumber, cook county sheriffs investigators stand at the ready. >> when a car pulls up, we take the guy down. guy takes off. we're not going to chase him.

>> far from the glory of news-breaking headlines, these hardworking men and women make up the frontline soldiers in the uphill battle against human trafficking. >> it's a misdemeanor arrest. we'll get his plate, go knock on his door tonight and talk to his wife about what he did today. >> fotoday's sting is 1 in over 200 targeting men who buy women. >> we've looked at the dem graphics. it's across the board. economics doesn't make a difference. race doesn't make a difference. age doesn't make a difference. we arrested one guy last year, 74 years old. i mean, the guy got out of surgery two weeks ago, bypass surgery, and he's out looking for a girl. >> responding to citizens' complaints to clean up manheim road, a strip of low-budget hotels near o'hare airport. in 2010, sheriff tom dart dramatically raised the stakes for the buyers of sex. >> we try to bring as much publicity as we can to it. we raise all the fees and fines. we're taking their cars from

them and then we're charging them this outrageous fee to get it back. so it will be very unpleasant, in addition to having a criminal record and the rest of it. >> we're basically going to pick up johns. we have two undercover police officers on the corner. >> today officer jim will be the eyeball responsible for the safety of the female undercovers. >> i'm just going to sit across the street from where they're at. as soon as they make a deal with whoever the john is for a sex act, i'll take the takedown cars that it's a go for them to arrest the car. >> are they out? >> yeah. 10-4. >> in front of the gas station? >> she's south of dickens right now. >> okay. 10-4. >> sergeant ray, a 20-year veteran, will take the lead in the command car. >> we're just south of o'hare, so there's people getting off work, you know, a lot of workers all day and night. a lot of customers on s coming through. >> we usually work in the evenings, the vice team. the street-level prostitution is in the morning.

a lot of the girls wake up and are sick and sad unless they get their heroin and are throwing up. first thing they do in the morning, they're on the street getting the guys on their way to work. >> within the next ten minutes, why don't we just switch out? >> okay. >> after 30 minutes and no takers, it's clear to detectives that decoy one with her flip-flops and mom hair falls short in appeal. the second decoy we'll call teresa takes over. >> there's probably 40 to 50 prostitutes that we know of that regularly walk this strip and there may be a girl right there across the street. the girl with the black shorts and the pink top, a female, white. >> a complication arises when potential competition for the decoy shows up. >> why don't you and bruce just go up to her and tell her to get off the road or she'll be arrested. >> the team needs the stroll completely clear so that the undercover decoy has a monopoly on buyers. >> maybe this creep, the old guy

will walk up to them. maybe after that we'll move them over to the west side of the street. >> with still no action on this corner, the team decides to relocate closer to the motels. >> black jeep grand cherokee in the parking lot of the regal. >> within seconds, the new strategy pays off. >> all right. it's a go on the jeep. she must have told him she has a room in the back. >> and the takedown team swoops in. >> step out. face the car. don't touch anything. >> guy tapped his horn at her. she walked and met him. takedown car is taking him. once that happens, the car gets driven by one of the police officers to our substation. and the body goes in the police car with the police. >> it's a go. it's a go. >> the team barely has time to regroup before they snag the second catch of the day. >> put the car in park. shut it off. shut it off. >> are you serious? >> yeah.

serious as a heart attack, here, brother. >> you think that you're looking appropriate for the job that you're doing, and they drive right past and they don't stop. you can't help but to take it personally. so once they do stop, you're like, ding, there's one in my pocket. >> all right. it's going to be a gold colored vehicle facing east. >> arrest after arrest. >> put your hands behind your back. >> the johns express surprise and shock. >> this is a big misunderstanding. big misunderstanding. >> many like this young man from indiana immediately make excu excuses. >> granted if i was walking into the place, or if i pull my car up to the hotel, but i was literally leaving. >> we'll explain everything when we get you over there, okay? >> you've got the professional types, the younger kids. you get construction workers. tradesmen. you know, the nationality of the person. nothing matters. >> inside the car. let's go. >> it's basically just, you know, everything. >> you understand your rights? >> by noon, the sheriffs police

substation overflows, as nine cuffed men face the uncomfortable reality of being caught in a human trafficking sting. >> start with your hands. >> each is fingerprinted and their vehicles are towed. >> this is where your vehicle has been towed to. you need to pay the impoundment fee before you pick it up from the tow yard. >> 1,000 to 1,500 will buy freedom and anonymity for those johns. >> have a wallet on you? >> in addition to cleaning up manheim road, to date, sheriffs police have collected $150,000 for the county. >> where is she at right now? >> down the store. >> what store? >> tony's. >> this 69-year-old john has a very big problem. >> all right. silver town car pulling out right now. >> he was arrested for soliciting a sex act after dropping his disabled wife at the grocery store. >> she went shopping. he said he was going to drive down the street to get a quickie. although i don't think he told

her that. that's what he intended on doing. we arrested him, too. >> okay. you were supposed to go back and get her? >> okay. >> a task force understands that targeting these buyers of sex directly impacts the ability for traffickers to sell women in cook county. >> explain it to you, though, okay? >> their hope that if enough men experience the shame and cold cash consequences of being arrested, the demand for street sex will drop. >> step up in the van here. >> we don't really have a goal in mind today about how many guys we want to get, but at this point, we got nine guys and there will be more to come, especially around lunch. it will get busy. it was painful. it was on your neck, and i got in trouble for fainting. [ woman 2 ] to carry on traditions. [ woman 3 ] to come together even when we're apart. [ male announcer ] in stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and more, swanson makes holiday dishes delicious.

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cook county is a leader in taking a progressive approach to fighting human trafficking.

>> 4892. >> since 2010, with help of undercover operations like today's, the state's attorney has brought over 60 cases against traffickers. >> there's, like, three new ones right now. >> with over 20 years of investigative experience, commander michael antan knows arresting women is the only ways to separate a victim from the man who controls her. >> right now, what we're doing is we're looks for ads and we will call the numbers they provide and set up what they call a date. is this anastasia? you available today for a hookup? >> a date is made with the young woman calling herself anastasia, but her eagerness to give anton her exact location is an immediate red flag. >> normally, if you've been doing it for a while, you will not give the location. the exact location. until you get in the area. it's her. but she told me the address. which is kind of unusual. >> this is her.

hello. >> when anastasia quickly calls back to discuss price, anton suspects his date may be under the thumb of a pimp. >> she had to call me back to ask the price which kind of leads me to believe someone might have told her, you know, you didn't discuss price, so call him back. >> a pimp on the scene means potential violence for the undercover. >> about a month ago, one of my guys answered an ad, went into the room and two men attempted to rob him. ended up breaking his hand. we tooblg took the two individuals into custody. had we not been there, they would have robbed him and probably would have left him there beat up. it's very dangerous. >> the team heads out to a suburban hotel 15 miles nor northwest of chicago. >> we're going it have to be aware of who's watching that room. a lot of times the pimp will stay out in parking lot and be watching the room. if they sense anything, they'll drive away and leave the girl there. >> anastasia's area code leads

anton to suspect she's been trafficked from out of state. >> it was a 414 area code. that's milwaukee, wisconsin. we have a large amount of girls being brought down to chicagoland area and are being pimped out. okay. i'm si i'm sorry, what did you say? >> with his backup in place outside the hotel, anton calls for anastasia's room number. >> 405? call to door 5. okay. she didn't give me a room number yet. she said, pull to door 5. you guys copy? >> 10-4. door 5. >> we're not going to know what room he's in. >> when i go in, i'm going to keep my phone on. keep it on so you guys can hear me, where i'm going, all right? >> the team converges at door 5 to wait for anastasia. >> i've talked to her twice, actually three times now, and i got a feeling of what she is, but i still don't know until i open that door what's going to

happen. what i'm going to do is take off my star. i got to take off my gun, too, because i'm not going to be armed when i go in there. >> anton enters the hotel to meet with anastasia. within minutes, he signals that a deal for sex has been made. and officers quickly move in. >> okay. whose suitcase is this? >> it's my suitcase. i have a boyfriend. >> where's your boyfriend? she's 19. she's from milwaukee, wisconsin. she claimed initially she came here by herself. then i started looking around the room and i find men's clothes in there. >> we ask you to be straight-up with us. >> i am straight. >> whose suitcase is this is. >> i just told you, it's my bag. i bought those clothes. >> this half bottle of cologne is yours, too? >> uh-huh. >> you only have $4? do you smoke? >> yeah. >> where's the cigarettes? >> i smoke weed. >> smoke weed. okay. >> inside the room, investigators uncover several i.d.s, condoms, small amount of

marijuana, and a man's electric shaver. >> we checked the front desk and turned out an individual had rented the room, a male from milwaukee, and the desk clerk told us they had an argument this morning, so he took off. >> what do you know? what do you know? rented the room. i tell you what i'm going to do. i'm going to run all his stuff. he can come see me to pick it up, okay? >> that's my stuff. >> it's all men's stuff. >> it's in my room. it belongs to me. what are you doing? >> that's not your stuff. >> it is. it's in my room. it's my property. what are you talking about? >> actually it's not. >> it's my room. >> you did not rent the room. >> it's my room. he said you guys were not touching anything of mine. you said you were not taking anything -- >> why are you so protective of this guy? >> why you taking my stuff? >> anything else? >> [ bleep ]. go film something else. >> what's he doing? >> he's in my face with a camera. why are you in my face? >> your boyfriend is probably halfway to milwaukee right now. >> it's really a typical case of

these girls have been, i call it, brainwashed so bad that they'll do anything for their pimps. she got very, very irate when i told her i was taking the male's stuff so he can come and get it. >> come on. let's go. >> if we would have found a weapon in there, anything like that, she would have took the hit for him because, again, their ultimate goal is to protect their man. >> walking out. >> anastasia's pitbull defense of her so-called boyfriend continues outside the hotel as she is taken to the cook county lockup for processing. >> she's prostituting herself. there's a guy in the picture. she's protecting him. it leads me to believe there's a pimp involved. we take her out of the situation. the goal is to get her out of the entire prostitution life. >> the guy you were with, that's who i'm interested with, because you know what, he's not here. you're here. >> i don't have a pimp. >> okay. you have a boyfriend, right? >> no, i don't have a boyfriend. i don't have any of those things. >> you're well trained. >> i'm well trained? >> you are well trained. that is funny, isn't it?

she's 19 years old, so, of course, you know, you know everything. there's no problems in here life. everything is great. kind of like the honeymoon stage. she's fooling herself. bottom line is she's prostituting herself. she's out there. i guess until these women hit rock bottom or something catastrophic happens in their life, they'll continue to do what they're going to do. we're done with her. i'll sign her in. >> nicole tinan knows all too well the cold reality of cook county's jail cell and being controlled and sold by a pimp. >> you stand on the right side of your pimp, and you don't tell anybody that you have a pimp. he said, when you're done, you bring me all your money, and if you steal any money, if i catch you cuffing any money, you could die. he hit her with a bat. he hit her with a hammer. i was so scared. i said, he's going to kill her. s every day? when i can. [ bop ]

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that's my stuff. >> it is? >> one of the biggest hurdles in fighting modern day sex slavery is being able to recognize that

victims don't always look and sound like victims. >> that's not your stuff. >> that is. it's in my room. it's my property. >> but more often than not, behind all the tough girl exterior, is a shattered young woman being horribly abused. >> why are you so protective of this guy? >> how are you? >> at first glance, nicole tinan looks like any 20-something midwest mom, but look closely, and you'll see a painful reminder of being enslaved. >> we didn't have a choice, and the tattoos was just a marking that showed that we were his. it was to say that we were a part of him. >> homeless at 17, nicole met her first pimp, cuwaring on a stoop in a subzero winter milwaukee. >> i was in shorts, basketball shorts, and a sweatshirt. i put the sweatshirt over my knees and i was sitting there. >> the pimp, who also had other

teen girls under his control, quickly schooled her on what he called the game. >> he explained what pimp game was, explained that i now belonged to him and that i'd be working for him. i guess i was thinking it would be better than searching, like, for a place to sleep at every night. >> teenaged nicole learned those rules were real. >> the first day the girls came home, one of the girls didn't have enough money. and so he made me watch her get beat. i felt bad for the girl. i remember trying to look away a lot, and i didn't want to watch when he was doing it. he made me and said if i didn't that i would get what she was getting. >> from that day forward, nicole's life wasn't her own. >> one night, he told me that my quota was now $1,000, that he'd gotten me a blond wig which allowed me to look very white. and he said that white girls

make $1,000 a day. and when you're done, you bring me all your money. and if you steal any money, if i catch you cuffing any money, you could die. >> like most exploited women, nicole's trauma started early. nicole's biological mother struggled with addiction issues. >> i was abused by her boyfriend from 1 to 4 years old, and my mother left when i was 4. >> for nicole, this trauma started 25 years ago. >> regina labby has known nicole since middle school. >> you can talk about trafficking as being this horrible thing, but people don't recognize that there were all these other things underneath, years, decades before that built up to trafficking. >> taken in by relatives, nicole says that growing up she tried

everything to please her adopted mom. at first, nicole seemed poised to succeed. >> i was pretty much a straight-a student. i was involved in soccer. i played the violin. i played the cello. some cheerleading. pretty much tried to excel in everything. and i always wanted her approval. and she was always hitting me. we were always arguing and fighting, and she never told me she loved me. she never showed any compassion. >> by junior high, trouble with her adopted family escalated into a suicide attempt. foster care. and eventually at 17, nicole ended up on that snowy milwaukee street. so began eight years of being trafficked from milwaukee to chicago, a known circuit for juvenile girls. >> that repeated trauma over and over, it's kind of inevitable, like, where else was she going to go? and there happened to be a

predator there who could offer her exactly what she was looking for. >> initially, nicole's new pimp didn't ask her for sex and simply offered to give her a home. >> i told him i had no family, you know, i was pretty much alone in this world. and so right away, he took to the father role. >> what nicole didn't know was that the man that she had accepted as her new father figure, alex campbell, had recently been released from prison after serving time for attempted murder. >> i was crying uncontrollably. i felt blessed and then i felt undeserved but i also was grieving for, like, the family i didn't have, while i thought i was gaining a new family. >> nicole's elation was shortlived when alex told her and another girl he had recruited that being in his family had rules. >> every person in his family supposedly had the horseshoe tattoo and that meant you were part of his organization, his

family. and so he made he go first. >> after fainting from pain, nicole didn't realize that worse would follow. that night campbell demanded that nicole have sex with him. >> i started crying. i was like, just feeling like i have to give you all my money, i have to sleep with men for you to get this money, and now i have to sleep with you also. like, isn't the money enough? >> angered by her reaction, she says, campbell exploded. >> he took out a belt and made me get naked, and beat me with the belt across my backside until i said that i would do what he wanted. >> for five years, campbell sold nicole online, in strip clubs, and on the streets of chicago. pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in cash. nicole says any thoughts of escape were banished one night when alex stripped her and

another girl and zip tied them to a stripper pole. >> he had a tarp down, a blue tarp, and underneath the tarp was bats and hammers and chains and torture items. >> campbell started by beating the other girl for being defiant. >> i remember, like, bruises forming on her legs that looked exactly like the bat, that looked exactly like the hammer. i was scared to death. i was so scared. i said, this is the day we're going to die. he's going to kill her. but then he made her go to work that night still. and she could barely walk. >> nicole says for five years, she endured campbell's sadistic brutality which included beat g beatings while she was pregnant, but she says after she gave birth to her son, campbell made one threat too many. angry that nicole had fallen asleep in a motel after working a long shift, campbell awoke her with a menacing call, ordering her to get rid of her newborn

infant. >> he said, what you need to do is take your son and drop him off at the fire station, the police station, or hospital and leave him there. >> nicole said something inside her shifted with that threat. >> not my child. i know what it's like to be abandoned. i would never do that to my babies. never. you could do what you want to me, but you're not going to hurt my baby, you're not going to damage him for the rest of his life. >> she called 911, and police quickly placed her in a domestic violence shelter. >> and i tried to rebuild my life from there. >> while nicole escaped sexual servitude, alex campbell simply graduated to new levels of trafficking. >> i've been in federal law enforcement my entire professional career, and i don't think i have ever seen as malicious an actor as alex campbell. here is somebody who went above and beyond simply making money.

this was about personal control. greed. anger. violence toward other people in a way that lost any sense of their humanity. he said many times that he would kill me. >> she feared for her life, and she feared that she could be killed by him and thought she would be killed by him for going to the police. easier to get a . it gets an impressive 34 highway mpg easier to get a . and comes with no charge scheduled maintenance. and right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature. sign. then drive. get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on any new 2014 volkswagen. hurry, this offer ends december 2nd. for details, visit vwdealer.com today

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i'm milissa rehberger. here's what's happening. nts brk investigators retrieved the black box recorder from the train that derailed in new york city today. four people were killed in the accident. officials will spend the next week to ten days combing through the black box data and the scene. a seattle man was arrested today for allegedly stealing a 330 passenger ferry. the boat was found drifting 300 yards from its pier. police are trying to figure out how men managed to commandeer the ship. back to msnbc undercover.

i think that human trafficking is one of the great moral wrongs of our time. it's a scourge, and we're in the middle of a big, fat fight. and we need to win that fight. >> under the leadership of director john morton, immigration and customs enforcement, or i.c.e., has declared war on human traffickers. investigating more than 100 cases a year and arresting dozens of traffickers. in 2010, i.c.e. got a call about a v a violent criminal who enslaved a young ukrainian woman and chicago. who was this menacing figure? nicole tinan's tormentor, alex campbell. the case snowballed after an alert cook county detective trained to look for signs of trafficking notified federal investigators. >> when i first met julia, she was a very scared young lady.

>> julia reported her boyfriend had beaten and threatened her. >> he said many times that he would kill me and nothing would stop him. >> she feared for her life and she feared she could be killed by him and thought she would be killed by him for going to the police. >> vanhorn plugged julia's so-called boyfriend's name into the computer. >> before i started this case, i never even heard of alex campbell. once i put him in the system, i found an extensive criminal history. >> in 1986, campbell shot his way into a house, then held two women captive in a tense standoff with chicago police. convicted of attempted murder, home invasion and kidnapping, campbell served ten years. after his release, he was arrested, again, for selling young women. and many of those women like julia sported that telltale

horseshoe tattoo. >> i came up with several other girls with the exact same tat o tattoos. web i started seeing all of this come together, i had reason to fear this girl was in serious danger and i needed to get her in a safe haven before he finds her. >> julia, who had a master's in education from ukraine, struck vanhorn as an unlikely girlfriend to such a violent felo felon. she'd come to the u.s. to become an opare. >> my plan was to improve my english and learn the culture of this country. >> after working three months caring for a family of six, the family let her go on thanksgiving weekend, leaving her homeless in a foreign country. the agency that placed her offered no help. >> my agency told me, you can call your parents and ask for money, and theoretically i could do that, but practically i could not because i was too proud to do that. >> that's when an acquaintance

introduced her to the owner of several chicago massage parlors. a businessman named alex campbell. >> the first time i talked to him was over the phone. there was nothing suspicious about him. just, like, regular person, talked to me about a job. >> even though julia has no experience as a massage therapist, campbell offers her a job. >> in the beginning, he was her knight in shining armor. she was in a situation. he came alo lonlong and saved hm that situation. he gave her a job. he gave her a car to get around in. he gave her an apartment to live in and she was paid very well. >> after a few months after constant attention, julia reluctantly begins a romantic relationship with campbell. >> i would not say that i liked him so much at first, but i think i got used to him, and then i realized that it was not -- even my decision, it just, like, happened. >> then things start to change. >> he acted like a very jealous

man, and every day it was getting worse and worse and worse. >> campbell's behavior becomes increasingly threatening and violent. >> it began to turn around where he started to keep the money and just give her enough money to get something to eat. he had gotten ahold of her passport and her visa and all her immigration documents. she had asked for that stuff back, and he refused to give it to her. so she didn't have no idea where to go, what to do. >> he started to even yell at me for just no reason, didn't know what was going on. it went to the point when i was really afraid of him. >> julia soon realizes she is not alone. campbell had four other ukrainian women working at the spa. all were young and all were in the country illegally. >> they have to totally obey him, whatever he says. if not, they will have to pay for that. >> julia recalled she first witnessed campbell's brutality

one night after campbell took his staff to dinner. >> they ended up taking pictures and in one of the pictures, one of the girls wasn't smiling to mr. campbell's liking. and he took them all back to the spa and proceeded to beat this girl and broke two pool sticks over her shins of her legs. >> a security system in campbell's office kept the girls under constant surveillance. >> the spa, there were cameras everywhere, so anything you say, anything you, like, do, that looks bad in his eyes, he would just call you to his office and then you will be punished. >> the girls at the spa were told never to speak to each other or to their customers. when julia broke this role, she was called to campbell's office. >> she was stripped of her clothing, tied to a bed and he beat her with sticks, a belt, and his hands. >> he kept repeating, your life

doesn't belong to you anymore, now your life belongs to me. i am your kingdom and i am your god. >> campbell then gave julia an ultimatum. if she ever begin disrespected him or angered him, she would be taken to the basement. >> he used his basement as a place kind of torturing people. and he said that whoever comes in this basement will never come out alive from that place. and he said that it was really easy to get rid of the dead bodies. >> for six months, julia says she was a virtual prisoner. forced to work 12-hour days in the spa doing bookkeeping and massage. >> i told him, i am going to leave, just give me back my pass port, because i'm done. then he said that it's not going to happen. he would never just let me go. >> mr. campbell had told her

that he had police officers working for him. that he had government officials working for him. that if she went to the police, she was going to get arrested. she was going to go to jail then she would be deported after she got done with that. and that was how he had her under his control. >> but when another young ukrainian named masha mysteriously vanished, julia decided to escape. >> i didn't have any plans. i didn't know what to do, where to go. nothing. i just had this in my mind, i need to leave now or never. >> in her panic, julia suddenly recalled a phone number of a friend and waited anxiously for her ride. >> i was so afraid, any car that would hear passing by, it was just like freaking out, because i thought that was alex. can't you just leave me alone? >> you better bring a -- in here. if you don't, we will go to war. now get my [ bleep ]. check it out.

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in august 2009, an alert cook county detective contacts i.c.e. about a young ukrainian national in crisis. >> i was so afraid that he would kill me, and nothing would stop him. >> julia says she's just escaped a violent felon who operates a series of chicagoland massage parlors. the man, alex campbell, has her passport and threatens to kill her if she leaves. >> she feared for her life and feared she could be killed by him and thought she would be killed by him for going to the police. >> the case breaks wide open after a second woman, masha, escapes and also contacts i.c.e. she, too, says campbell held her hostage. >> masha was led to believe by

mr. campbell that he had someone on the inside, so to speak, that worked at immigration that would help her get her legal status to get a green card. >> agent seibens who led the campbell investigation says instead of helping the young woman, campbell stole her passport. masha would have to pay him $16,000 to get it back. when masha couldn't pay, campbell forced her to have sex with strangers for cash. >> she felt if she wasn't paying him this money, she was going to end up dead. >> i.c.e. agents begin working with masha and start recording campbell's threatening phone calls. in this call, campbell claims masha owes him $12,000. >> i'll try to get up in on tritri frid, okay? >> you're supposed to bring me all of my money today, that's what you told me. if you want to play games like this, i'll show you how to play games. i'll send [ bleep ] people there, beat your [ bleep ] up. >> in the phone conversations, mr. campbell is very angry, very

demanding. he threatens deportation. he threatens physical abuse. >> i don't want to play the game. i will give you money, just don't do anything. >> you need to pay me my money. you owe me. you need to pay me my money. >> seibins says campbell is a well-read expert, having learned how to manipulate women from books like "the pimp game" and the "pimp's bible." >> this book was in mr. campbell's possession. one of the particular passages in the book is called the "black male pimp" and in this he indicates how to find something about that person that they do not want other people to know and then to exploit that to control them. >> to blackmail masha, campbell forced her and another girl to have sex together with him and another man. campbell then videotaped it and threatened to send it to her parents in the ukraine if masha defied him. >> can you tell me what the money is for? what is this for?

for what? >> what you should do is call your mom and your dad and tell them that, look, on the internet is going to be a lot of pictures of me sleeping with this black guy, having sex with a girl, and sucking this chinese's guy's [ bleep ]. >> can't you just leave me alone? >> this is my last word to you. you better bring a payment in. if you don't, we'll go to war. now get my [ bleep ] none. >> as bad as it's been for julia and masha, both women tell a police there's a frail 20-year-old nicknamed diamond who lives as a virtual prisoners in campbell's spa. >> she was beaten by mr. campbell with 2 x 4s, pool cubes. he put cigarettes out on her bare skin. he was in essence his punching bag. >> campbell starved her and

forced her to eat a $20 bill in front of other women. >> the abuse that young woman took, nobody, nobody should have had to take that. >> in january 2010, i.c.e. agents carefully planned the arrest of alex campbell. wary of campbell's violent past, which included an armed standoff with chicago police in 1986, investigators arranged to ambush campbell outside the cook county courthouse. >> we decided the safist place to arrest him was following an appearance on a different criminal case. >> after winning his case, campbell leaves the courthouse with a smile. little did he know the s.w. avm t. team and i.c.e. were about to bring his criminal career to an end. >> when he got released, he looked like the happiest man in the world and walked out of the court toward his car. once he got a couple car lengths away is when they took him into custody. >> once he was cuffed, what did

this 250 pound self-proclaimed god who forced dozens of women to bow and serve him he was cry to make sure that we weren't there to kill him or hurt him. and i was quite appalled at the fact that he sat in that car and cried after what he had done to these women. >> in coordinated strikes across the chicagoland area, police raided campbell's house and his spas where they were able to rescue 20 women. all the women were branded with a tattoos of campbell's domination and control. >> several of the girls had tattoos on their back, which contained a scroll and a story, which took up most of their back from the bottom of their shoulders down to their waist. >> he was tattooing his creed, his philosophy, the way he wanted to pursue his domination of these women literally on their body. so, that they lived his rules,

his submission every single day of their life. >> in october, 2011, a federal judge sentenced alex campbell to life in prison for enslaving five foreign women. at the sentencing, while the other victims lacked the strength to speak, nicole tinan did. she said she and others like her were serving their own life sentences. >> we have to live every day with those memories and i want to live a good life and a trustworthy life. i have to be honest with people that i want to share my life with, which means having to tell this story to them over and over and over again. it's not something that i just get to go and forget. it's not something i could forget. about 70% of the trafficking tattoos are bar codes. the youngest i've seen is 13. you start at point "a."

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if anybody has any doubt as to why we have to go after human trafficking and sexual exploitation, hammer and tong, these tattoos leave no reasonable doubt. it's one thing to have a tattoo that you chose to put there. it's another to have another human being impose their will on you and to make you acknowledge it in the form of a tattoo that covers your entire back. >> director morton says the public needs to understand that the branding of women by pimps has reached a new level of criminality. >> it is a particular depravity to tattoo somebody, to mark them as your property. that is what is going on. >> case in point, the new trend

by traffickers of bar coding women. >> probably about 70% of the trafficking have been barcodes. the youngest victim i've seen was 13. >> tattoo artist chris banker of ink 180 a nonprofit dedicated to erasing tattoos explains. >> they look just like a bar code on a product that you buy in the store, like a upc barcode, but they'll have both numbers and letters usually below the tattoo, sometimes above and below. and if a pimp sees a girl they don't know with a barcode they'll look up that reference number at an underground website and track them back to whatever code owns her and contact that pimp and ask what they want to do. usually it's she ran away and we'll send somebody or make her disappear. ink 180, which originally served former gang members has removed tattoos from over 100 trafficking victims. >> what we see are gang symbols because on a local level, a lot of trafficking is run by the

gangs. we also see pimps names. they want that symbol out there. >> that hurt a lot that time. >> today nicole tinan meets with chris baker to remove the neck tattoo alex campbell forced on her at age 17. >> it was very painful. he was very angry with me for that. >> did you feel that one pop. >> this is the second session and it could possibly take one more to get the tattoo completely removed. >> how sadistic and brutal it is for pimps like campbell to brand a women's neck. >> i have over 140 hours worth of tattoo work on my body and not a single one on my neck because i know how painful it is and people will pass out and even some people have gone into shock getting tattoos on their necks. >> a year ago, baker knew nothing of human trafficking. >> i was in a church meeting when i heard about nicole's story and the judge was quoted

as saying the women involved here will have to look at this for the rest of their lives and it broke my heart. >> i'm very, very grateful for not only myself, but the work that he's doing with many others. i feel it's like a miracle. >> nicole is pleased that law enforcement has put alex campbell in jail for life. >> i just started like dealing with what i went through with him six months ago. so, i don't know what my future looks like, i just know that it looks better than what it did before. >> to help heal the emotional scars of five years of being bought and sold, nicole has joined a trafficking support group. >> we have to teach her a new language. we have to teach her new life skills. we have to teach her to believe that there's more, much, much more and that she's worth it. >> connie campbell is the founder of five stones, an organization dedicated to

raising awareness by helping trafficking victims like nicole tell their story. >> if you don't know about this, your kids could be in danger. because they're easily enticed and people think that it's just the bad kids or just the kids that are run aways. completely not the example at all. it only takes a moment to lose soul. only a moment. we have to get that message out there. >> i feel like it's very important for people to hear the real story so that they know what it is that is going on in their own neighborhoods and across the country and across the world. >> human trafficking is one of the great more wrongs of our time. one of the most important things is that people realize that victims realize they can come forward. they will be okay. we will take care of them. we will investigate people and we will put them in jail.

in san francisco and in cities from coast to coast, more and more massage parlors are moving into the business of sex for sale. >> do you know what they do here? massage, spa. >> no, a house of prostitution. >> behind iron gates like these, thousands of young women from asia and all across the world are bought and sold into sexual servitude. pleasing men on the hunt for a l happy ending. >> it looks like he got what he wanted. >> this isn't just one or two girls. these are thousands and thousands of girls b